


all the perfumes will not sweeten this

by piggy09



Series: Obscure Word Fics [1]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers through episode 10, the curse of purple prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 01:38:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She watches Cosima shatter from a distance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the perfumes will not sweeten this

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt on Tumblr:
> 
> "Cosima/Alison | Brontide: the low rumbling of distant thunder."

She watches Cosima shatter from a distance. She is always Death's bridesmaid -- never her daughter sick, never her caught beneath the wheels of a train, never her lungs blooming a violent cacophony of thorns and flowers, bowed heavy with scent. Her sacrifices are never this visceral. They are made in neat ink and the clinical distance between finger and switch.

To envy Cosima would be...madness, surely, but she watches her double bent over, coughs rumbling in her throat, and thinks about the sureness of blood on tile. Her garage has shelves and shelves of stain removers. All you have to do is wipe it up, and wipe it up, and wipe it up. Clean up your mess for long enough, and surely it will vanish. Neat, like a magic trick.

And if she was sick, surely Cosima would know what to do. Her double’s mind whirs like an engine, all neat clockwork, while Alison’s is rusting from the wine, stuttering stop-start on all the pills jammed in the gears. She swallows them with nothing but bitterness to ease the journey and waits for her throat to hurt. She curls her hand underneath her chin and tries one cough, two. Delicate in a way Cosima’s aren’t, the way they rip themselves from her throat like an animal. Her hands are still unstained. She dreams of Lady Macbeth.

If she was sick she could be useful, she thinks with a pang of guilt. All she can do is find the right brand of detergent to get blood out of Cosima’s shirt, blood out of Cosima’s sheets, blood out of Cosima’s chair. All she can do is be the magician’s assistant, watching with guilt as her sister stumbles on her own feet. She isn’t clever enough to do anything more – _stupid suburban Alison_ – and throwing money at the problem won’t help. All she can do is watch and wait. Patience was never her strong suit. She fiddles with the cross around her neck and thinks, _why not me instead?_

She’s not sure God would even listen to someone like her. The thought is terrifying, like stumbling into an abyss. But she can’t stop praying, the way she can’t stop reaching for Cosima every time she coughs. There is always another pair of arms to hold her, though, and another voice to murmur soothing things.

All she can do is watch and wait. The sound of Cosima coughing is like the low rumbling of distant thunder.

**Author's Note:**

> "Here's the smell of the blood still: all the  
> perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little  
> hand. Oh, oh, oh!"
> 
> \--Lady Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1


End file.
